Part 2 –

Part 2

The Ending of our Story

On February 7th of 2015 I contacted Jim’s son Michael to inform him about the death of his father. He asked whether there is a Will and I said that I don’t know. I was in complete shock and in no condition to talk with his son Michael about Jim’s Will. I told him that I live on $880 retirement benefit and have no means to go to Jacumba. He said that he lives in the Sacramento area and that he is willing to go to Jacumba and take care of everything, including the cremation, and that it will cost him at least $10,000.

So he knew right away that I was no obstacle for his plans. He had no choice but to take care of the cremation in order to get the death certificate.

Immediately following Jim’s death Michael must have contacted Jim’s webmaster and bribed him to put up a declaration of Michael declaring himself the heir of Jim Lacy’s Grandmaster title and heir of Jim’s Kung Fu System. Michael instructed the webmaster to put up a large portrait picture of himself and below that a video tribute to Grandmaster James Lacy, put together with pictures from Jim’s website and facebook page.

I thought I couldn’t trust my eyes and was shocked as I now realized why Jim’s son Michael avoided me, for I know that he is not the heir of Jim’s Grandmaster title and Kung Fu System. He hijacked Jim’s website!

After Jim’s death I had informed a dozen people from Jim’s facebook page, the names from the old guard whom I remembered, including Vince Peppers. I was not a member of Jim’s facebook page and thus could not post anything there.

I found it strange that nobody got back with me or sent me condolences. However, at this point I realized that Michael must have contacted these people before me and told them that he is the heir.

Next time I went to Jim’s website I saw that Michael had bribed the webmaster to strip down its massive content to a couple videos showing Doo Wai and Jim sparring as proof that it’s authentic Kung Fu. The rest is shop section for purchasing videos, etc. Jim had offered all his CDs for $25 and I saw that Michael priced them from $70 to $500.

I was devastated when I became aware that Jim’s son Michael had hijacked the website. He intentionally and deliberately destroyed his father’s legacy. I now could see clearly what his game was. He is a con artist who planned to hijack his father’s legacy and Kung Fu System and turn it into a profit business for himself.

This website was Jim Lacy’s storefront, his gate to the world. As the Archivist of the Five Elder System he started his website in 1996. With several different webmasters over the 25-year period it got very large and was a reflection of Jim’s life and evolution.
His son Michael weeded out everything personal about Jim Lacy, but deceives the visitors by calling it “Jim Lacy’s original website.” The energy and ambiance of Jim is gone from ironpalm.com.

Dear martial artists, if you were familiar with Jim’s website in the past and go there now you will not recognize it. Looking at his prices tells everything about his son Michael.

On February 27 of 2015 I received an email from Michael from Jacumba. He wrote that he secured Jim’s belongings. He needed to know whether this particular man (who had gone in the house and taken items), claiming to be Jim’s student really was his student or not.

He also wrote that the neighbor didn’t want to keep Jim’s dog Olive and if nobody comes to take the dog he, the neighbor, will bring her to the pawn to be put asleep. I was devastated to learn that Michael would allow that to happen!

Michael also wrote in this email from 2-27-15, “On another note, I have the cremation company picking up his body to be cremated. They will send me his death certificate.”

That means, he entered Jim’s house illegally.

Earlier I had contacted the Jacumba post master after I didn’t hear anything from Jim for a week and asked whether she knows why. When I talked with her later, while son Michael was in Jacumba, she said that she could not give Jim’s son Michael the mail since her regulations require to show her the death certificate.

Once Michael was inside Jim’s house, he got access to all of Jim’s passwords.

Jim wrote drafts of a Will, but did not secure it at a bank deposit or such.

His son Michael obviously looked for the Will and if there was any he destroyed it, for he was not the heir.

I again visited ironpalm.com and saw that the announcement of son Michael as the heir of Jim Lacy’s title and Kung Fu System had been taken down. His large portrait picture was removed as well. Obviously somebody must have warned him that his claims were criminal acts.

When I went to visit Jim’s website again I noticed that Michael again had bribed the webmaster to delete any pictures of me in the photo section. Except there is the tribute video with the picture of Jim and me in uniform sitting on the steps of our house in Juniper Street. Nowhere any mentioning that it is me, Jim’s widow. It would have cost con artist Michael money to redo the Tribute and eliminate my picture, so he wants people to think it’s a female student.

Since Jim’s son Michael is no martial artist and since he knows nothing about his father he needed a partner in crime. Vince Peppers, who in the past had lived with the Great Grandmaster, was willing to assist son Michael in eliminating me from the picture. Michael bribed Vince Peppers to write a eulogy for Jim Lacy, but not to mention me in it.

Vince Peppers writes, “…..His life began to go in the direction of his dreams.” But of course he is instructed not to mention that that was when I came into Jim’s life. Well, I clearly remember the situation when Vince said that he too wants to have a German girlfriend, but she has to have blond hair and brown eyes. When the Great Grandmaster began his crusade to ruin Jim Lacy’s life and career, Vince Peppers certainly would not have come to Jim’s support.

Michael starts the eulogy with a paragraph that he borrowed and filled in from a funeral brochure:

“He leaves behind children and grandchildren which will work hard to preserve his legacy in the martial arts world. I appreciate all the love and respect that has been shared by friends, students, and loved ones. All of you meant so much to him in his life. We celebrate his life knowing that his spirit is free.” Such is the talk of a con artist; no mentioning of me as Jim’s widow.

It is now one year later. Michael avoids me at all cost, and for good reason. He is not the heir of Jim Lacy’s property nor Grandmaster title and Kung Fu System.

The question comes up to what degree his wife may be the driving force behind this saga of legacy hunting. The only time she met Jim was in December of 2013 at the business meeting in San Diego where Michael had invited Jim to come.

I remember when I informed Michael about Jim’s death that he said at one point during the conversation “my wife”. Well, they did not even bother to tell Jim that they meanwhile got married. Of course no condolences for me, yet this woman now claims to be the rightful co-owner of Jim Lacy’s estate.

The last I heard was from a long-term woman-friend of Jim who tried to contact his son Michael to inquire about Jim’s last book, “Internally Yours” as well as the fate of the dog.

Michael did not answer her, but the webmaster wrote that Michael and his sister Harmony are going to sell the property in Jacumba.

Daughter Harmony has not been in touch with her father for ten years. She did not inform her father when she got married again and when her other children were born. She did not wish any contact with her father nor did she want her children to get to know their grandfather. Of course no condolences for me. But now that she watched how successfully her brother Michael hijacked Jim’s system, title, and property, she now thinks she too is the rightful co-owner of the booty.

Michael Lacy keeps changing Jim’s website.

I noticed that the product section is now shifting predominantly to Doo Wai’s products. Con artist Michael obviously calculates that selling Doo Wai’s products will make him more money than Jim Lacy’s stuff.

By now, one year after Jim’s death, there is barely any information about Jim Lacy left on his website.

Jim would never have passed the system on to his son Michael. Over the years Jim gave him tapes and CDs with forms to sell among his friends, but he never showed any interest in martial arts.

I wonder how many years Michael, the legacy hunter and hijacker, would get for the crimes against his deceased father? Or what about that he deliberately and intentionally eliminated any traces of me in his effort to erase my 25-year relationship with Jim Lacy. How do they call that sort of identity theft and how many years would he get for that?

Or what about viewing his crimes against me as targeting me for elder abuse, how many years for that? His list of added crimes is long.

Telling the Widow’s Secret

I’m glad I finally write our story down. I could not write it earlier, for the pain was too great.

As I said at the beginning, my first year in America, when I met Jim, was the happiest year of my life.

And now, that Jim suddenly is gone, I lived through the hardest year of my life. Not just because I lost the only close person in my life, but also because I had to watch how his son Michael hijacked Jim’s legacy and property. A story of abuse. He stole everything Jim left behind, all of Jim’s belongings, Kung Fu system with huge video library, inventory, new Jeep, complete household. Plus he hijacked Jim’s Grandmaster title.

Astrologically it’s a good time for revelations of things that have previously been kept under wraps. It’s called “A widow’s past is brought to light.” It speaks about secrets coming out, but it can also be about somebody’s fears that such things might be brought to the surface.

I am the only one who can expose the legacy hunter and con artist Michael Lacy.

I am the heir of anything Jim left behind. I selected our land in Jacumba, I bought all furniture and all items in the house. When I left my husband in December of 2005, I gave him my half of everything we owned. I loved him and did not want to ruin his life by demanding to sell the property and split things 50:50. Jim did fit in better in the Jacumba area as the last corner of the Wild West. He was seen as an outcast by the locals, but he was a people person. He chatted with everyone. But I felt more and more like a foreign body.

At age 59 I left Jacumba with two bags and my computer tower to make a fresh start on my own by living openly as a Lightworker and fully stepping in my life’s mission. I had no money, no friends, no car, no job.

Everybody told me to divorce my husband so that he has to sell the house and I’ll get half of everything we owned for my new start, and that this is the Californian Law. But it is not my style, not my law, for I live from the Heart. I trusted that my spirit guides would help me to survive on my own out there in the world.

Jim and I had many karmic ties to sever and heal, that’s why we had to come together again in this lifetime. We know each other from 54 lifetimes; many times our cat was with us. We both accomplished tremendous inner healing work during our years in Jacumba. And we each made much progress in our individual evolution.

Back in Jacumba I made every effort to help reunite Jim with his son and daughter so that they may restore their connection. Yet soon enough it turned out they both had no desire to have their father in their lives. And of course they had no interest in me as a relative.

After I divorced Jim his son Michael calculated that he will be the heir of everything. That is why he stayed in phone contact with Jim after he had a stroke. Jim always said that he did not trust Michael. In retrospect it is clear to me that Jim knew better.

As I mentioned before, the last interaction Jim had with his son Michael was at the end of 2013.

Michael and his fiancee had a business meeting with their boss and his girlfriend in San Diego. He offered Jim to come to San Diego for a lunch meeting. Of course he gladly accepted.

Jim told me about the visit and that he mentioned to the others how he struggles financially. His son Michael announced in front of the others that he will send Jim a care package. It was not meant literally but cynically, to tell the others that he sees his father as a loser. It deeply hurt Jim. Jim always said that there is no connection between them.

As I said above, Michael didn’t even bother to tell Jim that they got married since that last lunch meeting in San Diego.

The Widow Speaking Out

Without me showing up in his life Jim would have been the slave to the despot Doo Wai for awhile longer until he would have been caught by the police.

With his many years of prison experience he was a “three striker”, that is, one more felony and he would have ended in prison for the rest of his life. The Grandmaster knew that, yet he made Jim commit crimes for him. Jim had to deliver – on his old motorbike on a 45 min freeway drive – a weekly supply of marijuana to the Grandmaster.

At one time Jim had to pick up a gun from somebody in San Diego and bring it to Escondido to the Grandmaster’s. He also had to bring him regularly Penicillin. As I am writing this memorial the question comes to my mind what the Penicillin really was. I blocked out much of the martial arts life around me, since I didn’t agree with much of what happened.

Without me there would be no “Mew Hing Productions”, which we founded in 1991 and put in my name.

Without me there would be no property in Jacumba. I selected our property in Jacumba and was the steward of the land for twelve years. And I wrote these monthly mortgage checks of $732,43 for twelve years. For Jim and me that was what life was about: In the first week of the month to make the money to pay that major bill, and then afterward all other bills. This permanent struggle of life was supposed to be the American Dream!

Without me there would be no Panther Tapes. I was involved, even though in the background, in the creation of the 17 Panther Tapes, when they were produced in San Diego and a year later in Jacumba.

Without me Jim’s vast video library would not exist. I loved his idea of home studying through video exchange and fully supported him. Over the years we watched at night on our big TV screen hundreds of video tapes which his students had sent in for certification.

Without me Jim would not have developed his vast website throughout the years, nor would he have written so many articles and books.

I was the one in the background. Jim used to say that without me he would be a beach bump. And I in response told Jim that I illuminate him from behind.

In the past at the herb shop in San Diego, Mr. Wang and his son Ohn always called me Shi-Fu and I laughed and said, “no I’m not Shi-Fu, I’m Karin.” They always responded back the same: “Jim is Shi-Fu, you too Shi-Fu”. Following the tradition I am the rightful heir of the System, for I speak for Jim.

I will decide together with Larry Matheny the procedure of restoring and preserving Grandmaster James Lacy’s legacy.

The rightful successor and inheritor of the system is Larry Matheny in Springfield, Ohio. Larry connected with Jim in 1991, when we lived in Juniper Street. He is the only student who went up the ranks for fifteen years. He supported Jim for 25 years. Besides, he is reincarnated as one of the Five Elders, as are Jim and the Great Grandmaster. Larry Matheny is a true Kung Fu man.

Jim’s son Michael committed his crimes not just against his deceased father and me, the widow of Jim Lacy, but also to the entire martial arts arena. He is no martial artist, he knows nothing about martial arts, yet tries to deceive the entire martial arts arena by claiming to be the heir of a Grandmaster title and Kung Fu System. He infiltrated the martial arts arena as a con artist. He hijacked the Bok Fu Pai Kung Fu System and destroyed Jim Lacy’s legacy in broad daylight. I described his steps of takeover above. He is the proverbial bad apple in the basket, degrading all martial arts grandmasters who legitimately earned their grandmaster title.

As the latest on his fraud website Michael Lacy now offers paper hand-signed certificates per form for $250. This is another criminal action against the entire martial arts community.

When son Michael comes to realize that destroying Jim Lacy’s legacy won’t make him the profit he expects, he will sell the System to the highest bidder. If nobody stops him he will prolong his crimes towards his father and me. Since I have been witnessing his criminal activities for one year I am obligated to report to the martial arts community what I know.

Preserving Jim Lacy’s Legacy

I decided to create a wordpress blog in memory of Grandmaster James Patrick Lacy.

He was a public figure. In the eighties in San Diego Jim organized TV shows in which he and his teacher Parker Linekin demonstrated self-defense techniques. For many years Jim also taught self-defense to seniors. For all his humanitarian work Jim got a day in his name from the San Diego Mayor.

It is my estimate that within the last 25 years he talked over the phone and in person with about 15,000 people who were interested in his Kung Fu. He had students on all continents who communicated with him through phone, email, and videotape exchange.

Jim Lacy pioneered “home studying” in the martial arts. Of course this was not for the masses, but for a few passionate martial artists who appreciated this rare Kung Fu System and the chance to study it through video exchange. All of these dedicated students were over years in close contact with Jim Lacy.

Being disabled with a bad hip he could not do acrobatic moves. He had to modify the forms for himself. This is what he taught the average person who can’t move like Bruce Lee, but loves to master the forms according to their physical capabilities.

He encouraged everybody to follow his own example of making a living from what one loves to do the most. Many of his students started teaching themselves, some opened martial schools. Jim oftentimes had students who were war soldiers and Navy Seals who learned his Iron Palm. He also had students from the healing professions like massage therapists and chiropractors who learned the Iron Palm in order to utilize the Chi for healing purposes.

Jim truly loved people. He was a people person who still was in contact with a handful schoolmates back from high school. He was a loyal character. His personal dream was to afford a hip surgery and to be able to go surfing in the ocean, as he did in his youth.

I’m sure there are students out there practicing the art and cherishing the videos, books, and CDs that they bought from him years ago. Some may even pass White Tiger Kung Fu on to their children.

The many people who knew Jim Lacy deserve to know the true story. When they never hear from him again and search the Internet and find Doo Wai’s relentless twenty-year long slandering of Jim Lacy they may wonder whether these stories are true. There is even somebody on the forums claiming to be Jim Lacy, pouring his smut over the world-wide web.

James Lacy is now deceased, he has now become an ancestor. As we the living ones move forward into the future our lives are influenced and determined by how we honor the ancestors.

This especially applies in this particular case of a son destroying his father’s martial artist’s legacy and Kung Fu system from a lineage of ancestors, known as The Five Elders.

If somebody would like to share a story in memorial of Jim Lacy and see it posted here, please contact me at karinlacy@gmail.com

I will also use this blog to document Michael Lacy’s further criminal actions of destroying Jim Lacy’s legacy.

The story is far from over.

Message for Michael Lacy

Hereby I offer to you, Michael, the opportunity to publicly apologize to your deceased father Jim Lacy, to me, and to the martial arts practitioners for your criminal actions over the last 12 months. Everything you confiscated is mine. I am Jim Lacy’s widow and the heir of all of our possessions.

I am the heir of Jim’s Kung Fu System and title and will pass it on in Jim’s name to Larry Matheny (if he is willing to accept the role of the Archivist and carry on the Five Elder System.)

I accept only written messages from you, and they will be reported here on this blog for all those martial artists to see who knew and appreciated James Lacy and want to know what happens to his Kung Fu System.

Since Jim’s death you are practicing dog-eats-dog-world with me as your supposed “ex-step mother” in the ranking system of your belief system, and you want to come out as the fittest.

I can assure you that Jim is aware of your activities. Your character is being tested, whether you are aware of it or not. Believe it or not, your criminal actions are recorded in humanity’s Akashic Records, no matter how deep you bury yourself in your Cognitive Dissonance, and they will haunt you until you come clean.

In my role as a Lightworker and spiritual elder I will not allow you to pull me into your world of deceit and entangle me any further, for I know who your masters are. It’s a trap. Yet I will watch you, and as soon as the tide turns and the first Natural Law Court is established, you will be prosecuted.

If you try to ignore, or trick, or harm me in any way further, it will be posted here on this blog, for my protection.

I want to be informed in writing about each step you took since Jim’s death one year ago: I want to know everything about the cremation; I want to have Jim’s ashes and death certificate, all of our photos, all paintings, all my gifts to Jim. I want to have provable details about the fate of Jim’s dog Olive. I want to know where everything you confiscated now is and I want everything returned to me. I will sell the property and keep the money, as Jim wished.

As said above, I will act in Jim’s name and decide with Larry Matheny the future of Jim’s Kung Fu System.

If you want to be trusted again, here is your chance to better yourself!